Sarah Barrow: Armstands and aeroplanes

Team GB diver Sarah Barrow will be writing a blog for Sky Sports throughout the year as she travels the world with diving partner Tonia Couch. In her second instalment, Sarah and Tonia are in Canada - and among the medals...

Windsor, Canada and the fifth World Series event out of six. Back at home I was looking forward to going away; training had been going well and Canada always puts on a good meet.

Getting out there was a bit of a trek - a midnight pick-up on Monday to get to Heathrow for 4.30am, then an eight-hour flight to Washington DC before a delay and, eventually, a full plane to Detroit.

When we got to Detroit we were picked up by Canadian volunteers who drove us from Detroit over the boarder to Windsor, Canada. It was meant to take 40 minutes but we got lost ... it took us two hours.

With a five-hour time difference behind the UK I wasn't surprised when I was seeing double the next day on the 10m board. It was strange being in Windsor, Canada looking out over the river to see Detroit, USA - and pretty cool!

Training over the three days before competition had gone well. I was happy with the synchro training, not so happy with my reverse dive (fourth in my list) but my coach Andy always knows what to say to keep me confident. There wasn't too much to do in Windsor, so on our afternoon off we walked along the river taking photos in the sun, anything to make us laugh.

I had a good feeling going into Friday's synchro competition with Tonia, much like the feeling in London. We started the competition well with our required dives - and then on our third dive I heard the announcer say the Chinese had pulled out.

I looked at Tonia - she was in her own little world and knew she hadn't heard. We had our hardest dive to do well coming up so I decided not to say anything but this led to a potential problem in that we had to be ready now a dive pair sooner.

Before the Chinese pulled out we had been jumping in after them, with them pulling out I had to keep reminding Tonia to jump in after Malaysia.

We were sitting in the hot tub straight after the competition, really happy with our second place and she said: "Did the Chinese pull out? I had no idea, I thought you were a bit keen, I just went along with what you said!"

We laughed; this is why we are such a good partnership, we're relaxed when we're together and we know what or what not to say most of the time.

It's the same plan as always the next day - I went onto the 10m board again to do my other two dives that are not involved in the synchro competition. One armstand - great - and then three reverses later - not so great - but I thought it would be ok on the day. Fingers crossed.

It was a tough long Sunday: alarm at 6.30am in the pool for 8am with Tonia and Tom. I had a really bad warm-up, I didn't even go through my front 3.5 dive. We were both in semi-final B after the men which meant we didn't compete until 12.30pm. That's a long time to wait and perhaps why everyone was a bit off.

Considering how bad my warm-up was, I was pleased with the way I dived - I did my best-scoring forward 3.5 in a very long time and reverse wasn't too bad either so I made the final in third place. I went into the final happy just to be in it, I had no pressure - I just needed a bigger score.

All of my dives were consistent, including another reverse - I know I can do better but it is my highest score in a World Series final. I finished fifth - just 1.2 off fourth place.

On to Monterrey, Mexico. Our flight was cancelled. Sat in another airport. Excited for the sixth and final World Series event - Mexico here we come!